The Italians lost 720 killed, 3112 wounded and 3608 prisoners.  The Austrian loss was 960 killed, 3690 wounded and 1000 prisoners.  Both sides were much tried by the scorching midsummer sun, but the Italians laboured under the additional drawback of having to fight fasting.  In his report, the Archduke Albrecht mentioned that the prisoners said they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours.  In the same report, he did ample justice to the courage of the Italian soldiers.

As has been stated, the Archduke fought Custoza with not less, probably with rather more, than 70,000 men.  The force which La Marmora placed in the field was actually inferior in number.  The divisions of Bixio and Prince Humbert were kept doing nothing all day at a stone’s throw from the scene of action.  Of the whole 2nd corps d’armee only a trifling detachment ever reached the ground.  Inexplicably little use was made of the Italian cavalry.

This bungling had lost the battle, but the fact that on the morrow, six divisions of the army of the Mincio were practically fresh, might have suggested to a general of enterprise to try again, since it was known that the Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on.  And there was Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions that had not been engaged at all.  But, instead of adopting a spirited course, the Italian authorities gave way to unreasoning panic.  It appears, unfortunately, that the King was the first to be overcome by this moral vertigo.  The long and fiercely discussed question of who telegraphed to Cialdini:  ‘Irreparable disaster; cover the capital,’ seems to have been settled since that general’s death in 1892.  It is now alleged that the telegram, the authorship of which was disowned by La Marmora, was signed by the King’s adjutant, Count Verasio di Castiglione.  Cialdini obeyed the order and fell back on Modena.  Whether he was bound to obey an almost anonymous communication signed by an irresponsible officer is a moot point; it is reported that he repented having done so to the last day of his life.

A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive battles of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa near Koeniggraetz in Bohemia.  The fate of Europe was shaped on that day for decades, if not for centuries.  Of the immediate results, the first was the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful.  In respect to Italy, Austria’s first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for Custoza.  She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon two days after Sadowa.  It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound discouragement to buoyant